UKRAINE: EUROMAIDAN AND TODAY

Screening

In 2013 the mass protests for an EU oriented Ukraine, known as Euromaidan, started, because then-president Viktor Yanukovych stopped the preparations for the association agreement with EU. In 2014 he was ousted by the protestors, after on-going demonstrations, but then Russian military interventions started a war in Ukraine.
Návštěva is a Prague based artists’ network on the actual political situation in Europe. Juliana Höschlova has curated for Návštěva a screening on Ukraine. This film program is also presented in Graz, as Juliana Höschlova is resident artist in Graz in the St.A.i.R. project.
The films are giving an insight on the actual situation in Ukraine, which is also the topic of the discussion with the filmmaker und journalist Ksenyia Marchenko and Alois Kölbl.

Návštěva is a Prague based independent project aiming to present contemporary art in relation to contemporary society. It presents works, artists, strategies and practices that actively inhabit existing space. Critical thinking and strategies revitalize artists' influence and responsibility to their living environment, shared with others of the society

Piotr Armianovski (Donetsk, 1985) is a Ukrainian performer and director. Started artistic activity in Donetsk theatre "Zhuki". Later performed and studied in Kyiv, Lviv, Moscow including “School of Performance” by Janusz Baldyga (Lviv, 2010), “Artist is present” by Marina Abramovic (Moscow, 2011). Also Piotr actively participated in politic actions during #OccupyAbay in Moscow, Maidan in Kyiv and Donetsk. For some period he has cooperated with Voina Art Group.
Piotr has performed on performance art festivals in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Wien and Kyiv. His videos were screened in Environment film festival (USA, 2016), Kilometers of Sculpture (Estonia, 2015), Documenting Ukraine / Open City Documentary Festival (UK, 2015), Inconvenient films festival (Lithuania, 2014) and others. He is interested in the topic of emergency, in margins of being. In discomfort and deviations from the "norms" there is a chance for new experience, for new connections and for revealing reality as it is right here right now. Since the mass deaths at Kyiv Maidan and the beginning of the war in Eastern Ukraine he has been researching on the edges of humaneness in conflict situation. What makes us humans? What defines our dreams?
Volodia- hero of revolution: Volodia is a teenager from Donetsk. He dreams to become a popstar like American Justine Bibber and Russian Roma Zhelud. In spring 2014 pro-russian protests started in Donetsk. Volodia came there and knew that US want to save its nuclear waste in Donetsk coal mines and EU wants to take out Ukrainian soil. So young man decided to struggle for his Fatherland.
On the east: Kramatorsk may not be the nicest place for life. A town of factories and broken infrastructures but its denizens find much to love there, reflecting on their home with frankness and warmth.

Kseniya Marchenko was born in Cherkassy (1989). Got MA in journalism at National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (2012). For three years was working as a correspondent for the most rated national TV news department of “Cannel 1+1”. Now is an editor and author of documentary projects for independent digital media Hromadske.tv. Contributed for independent documentary project “Realnost” (Russia). She is author of the documentary photoproject for BirdinFlight about post-war life of a young soldier who has lost his leg at frontline in the east of Ukraine when he was 19. She showed her first short documentary about Kyiv Metro on the several national film festivals. Her film “Who Owns Crimea? Festival of Annexation” is a part of exposition “Sentsow`s Camera” about Ukrainian Crimean director who is political prisoner of Russion court for 20 years. Exposition was presented at Museum of Modern Art in Leipzig, Germany (2016).
Kseniya is interested in the social-political transformation of the country, which started after events of EuroMaidan revolution. Ritual of presenting public opinion on marches during EuroMaidan now at the postmaidan and warperiod is deconstructed for the interests of far right wings and opposition of nowadays government of the country. Kseniya tries to fix how the public opinion is influenced by street activities, what messages are presented, how participants behave themselves and how conflicts are constructed.
“Who Owns Crimea? Festival of Annexation” trilogy is a story of public celebration in the territory under sanctions against Russia. Film presents so called backstage of the celebration and how reality was used for political manipulation and propaganda news for Russian mass media during the second year of celebration of proclaiming Crimea its territory. Three parts of film presents anty Ukrainian ideas which are pronouncing publicly from the stage and works to increase conflict and hating between parts of the country.

Kateryna Gornostai was born 1989 in Lutsk in Ukraine. Studied biology, and later journalism at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Then she graduated from the School of the Documentary Film and Theater at Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov in Moscow. She was working as an editor in web-documentary project „Reality” (2013/ www.realnost.com) and as a curator of projects at the „My Street Films” contest of the „86” festival of film and urbanism in 2015 and 2016. Currently, she has been teaching and second teacher at the master-degree course "Documentary and Factual TV" at “Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism”, National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy".
Her collaborative film “Euromaidan. Rough Cut” was introduced in Czech Republic within the festival One World in 2015. Now she is engaged in educational documentary programs, works on creative documentary and fiction projects.
Maidan is everywhere: This film tells the story by Kateryna Gornostai about the year 2014. For her, it began when Maidan had started and maybe didn't end yet. The whole year was in the atmosphere of revolution, then war. Whatever you did - you saw this things on the background, you always feel them, although you live not even on a border of war, but deep in in the rear. Kateryna wants to remember this year, as she wants to keep the memory of all the people who surrounded her. The year of Maidan, the year marked by war and peace. Film received the Andriy Matrosov Award in Docudays UA in 2015